Defense Budget

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Spending for the Department of Defense (DoD) accounts for nearly all of the nation’s defense budget. The funding provided to DoD covers its base budget—which pays for the department’s normal activities—and its contingency operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere overseas. CBO analyzes the possible consequences of planned reductions in funding for the military’s force structure and acquisitions. The agency also studies the budgetary implications of DoD’s plans, including those for military personnel, weapon systems, and operations.

The Navy can sustain its forward presence under smaller shipbuilding budgets by using longer deployments, more overseas basing, and more rotating crews. But those methods would offset some of the savings and have other disadvantages.

CBO estimates the Administration’s plans for nuclear forces would cost $348 billion over the next decade, close to last year’s estimate. However, projected costs for both the Departments of Defense and Energy have changed somewhat.

CBO estimates that the cost of the Navy’s 2015 shipbuilding plan—an average of about $21 billion per year (adjusted for inflation) over 30 years—would be one-third higher than the funding that the Navy has received in recent decades.

CBO projects that the Department of Defense’s plans would cost an average of $47 billion per year more from 2015 through 2021 than would be provided under the limits established by the Budget Control Act.

Between 2000 and 2012, the cost of providing health care to service members, retirees, and their families increased by 130 percent (after adjusting for inflation). What approaches might curtail the growth in those costs?

The costs of the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) budget plans through 2021 would be much higher than the funding permitted under the Budget Control Act’s statutory caps. CBO examined four options to cut back on DoD’s forces and activities.

For fiscal year 2013, the Department of Defense (DoD) requested about $150 billion to fund the pay and benefits of current and retired members of the military. That amount is more than one-quarter of DoD’s total base budget request.